Hi everyone! Check out my guest post at Lori Deschene’s Tiny Buddha. I share a personal experience I had with a homeless man in the rain. But be sure not to stay too long. You do have an article here waiting to be read, you know! 🙂

Well, my router just died the other day.

No big deal, but didn’t know why I couldn’t go online at first. So I asked a computer-savvy friend to take a look to see if he could figure it out.

He ran some simple diagnostics and reported the problem. Case closed.

But alas, life is not always so simple. When I plugged in directly to the modem (to bypass the deceased router), I found my computer still denying internet access.

And so I’ve been unplugged from all things online since Friday afternoon. That includes email, Facebook, Twitter, and yes, no Meant to be Happy (If you’re wondering how I then could post this article, I uploaded it at work – off the clock – where, unfortunately, all social media is blocked).

And so there I was over the weekend, lost, adrift without a paddle, stranded, abandoned, left to wilt in the cyberlandless desert, alone.

I felt (and was) disconnected. I was (and felt) isolated. Life seemed to be passing me by, unplugged.

What kind of comments were being left on my last post, I wondered. Did they like what I wrote? Maybe there were no comments at all. Maybe the post was too long (it was over 2,000 words!). And what about visits? Were people stopping by to read?

Oh the fears of potential rejection. Isolation. Blind, unable to see. Trapped in a cocoon of internet darkness. An impenetrable fog.

I paced. I moped. I complained. I sat at my laptop, impotent, staring into the emptiness, pecking at keys I knew would do nothing. Those words, those infernal words, “internet access denied” boring into my very soul, as I wondered if I would ever see life and light again.

And so I sulked from the office, wandering the lonely halls of our home into strange new surroundings. And then I turned the corner and saw it.

I blinked in utter confusion, rubbing my eyes in wonder as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing. What was this thing before me? What was this strangeness? What could it be and what could it mean?

And then I remembered. Oh, that’s my family!

And suddenly I no longer felt disconnected or stranded or wilting or blind. Suddenly I could see more clearly, in fact. Suddenly, no one felt abandoned.

And then I sighed. And smiled. And talked. And played. And was simply with those I love most in life.

Sometimes simple things remind us what’s most important. And so I’m glad routers sometimes break down and internet access is denied and priorities get nudged a bit closer to home so they more readily fall into proper order.

Lesson Learned: It’s one thing to write about priorities. It’s an altogether different thing to live by them. And the difference between the two matters profoundly.

Please Share

Please share your thoughts in the comments, then share this post with others by Tweeting and Sharing it on Facebook. It would mean a lot to me.

Thanks David! While there’s hyperbole in the article for comedic purposes, the setting and reality and epiphany were absolutely true. It’s so easy for me to get caught up on things that I forget people. True, people certainly are heart and soul of what I do and why I do it, but I’m still typing on a laptop instead of holding my beautiful wife and hugging my little boy.

I appreciate you being real with us. As you said, writing about it is one thing, living it is another, and often much harder. I notice as I blog, that sometimes my posts serve to remind me of where I could stand more integration by living what I’m writing.

They become messages/ love notes to myself!brad recently posted … Gratitude Now

So true, Brad. So much of what I write about is what I need to hear most. We are all works in progress, for sure! And finding that balance in life can be tough considering the need to balance more than just our own preferences and priorities, but the preferences and priorities of those in our lives we have prioritized as very important to us. Take care, Brad and thanks for the comment. By the way, I like that thought: “They become messages/love notes to myself.” Well said!

So true! I saw this in myself when I kept reading about meditating rather than spending time meditating! Also, I catch myself in the middle of a “real” life situation thinking about how I could write a blog post about it. Sigh. So easy to think about, write about, read about life, rather than living it. I am ever grateful for my cabin in the mountains, just a short drive from home, where I have no internet or phone service.Galen Pearl recently posted … A Free Day!

Haha! Oh the foibles of humanity! We’re all good at reading something, thinking, “Ah, what a great idea. I should do that too!” then getting to the things we always do, never quite getting to the new idea we thought would be good to start doing. But what’s great about life is all the little adjustments we can make as we go, little course corrections.

Standing ovation to you, Ken. 😀 You were conspicuous by your absence and missed much.

🙂 Where I live, Ken, this is the order of the day. I’d not be lying if I said my eyes get all glazed over when my router takes a break (more breaks than I do, I just realized) – yet, I have so much going on offline, I never felt the pain. Until one day, when my hard disk crashed. That was awful. Two weeks of desperately retrieving…ugh, you know what I am saying.

Thank you, Vidya! Unfortunately, I still haven’t figured out what’s wring. I’m sending mu computer over to the IT people at work to see if they can figure out the interne problem. I’m here at work now before hours to reply to the comments and to post articles, but I still don;t have access to Facebook or Twitter (though I did find out that Google + isn’t blocked.

So I’m still only semi-here. 🙂

I’ve had my hard disk crash too, but so far not since I’ve been blogging (fingers and toes crossed!).

Hm…cyberlandless desert…I like that. But I wouldn’t want to be left there for over a day or so. Call me addicted to Internet and Social Media. 🙂 Great sory and a reminder to all of us!Emily recently posted … dental implants

Thanks Emily. It was a sobering moment. And while I’ll be making some adjustments (restricting my at-home blogging time to certain time frames, for example), I do look forward to the end of this cyberlandless desert!. Hopefully I’m near the outer edge. But still no social media (I’m typing this out at work — I get here early — where social media access is blocked). It’s been a week now!

You’re right about all of us needing periodic reminders. So easy to get caught up in something that we forget to look up and see the rest of the world. Thanks for stopping by, Emily.

Ken, that’s a refreshing post. One of the more amazing books I’ve ever read was by an American Catholic priest named Walter Ciszek, who ended up being captured by Russians during World War II, accused of being a spy and shipped to Siberia for about 15 years of brutal labor. One of the biggest things that sustained him (he eventually came home to the U.S.) was a belief that challenges were put in front of him for a reason — and that there was always some way to turn unfavorable circumstances into an opportunity. If it’s a philosophy that worked for him in a forced-labor camp, surely the rest of us can apply it to traffic jams, annoying relatives or problems at work. Thanks for offering a great example of how to do it here — and best of luck getting back online!Stephen Martin recently posted … Quiz Time: How Thick Is Your Social Bubble?

Sounds like a great read. Do you remember the name of the book? Would love to put it on my list of books to read. Have you ever read Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning”? Sounds like a similar theme, but his was in the Nazi death camps. He developed a new form of psychotherapy from his experience that he called logotherapy, or meaning-therapy. He held that suffering can be endured if there is a compelling reason to endure it.

Thanks for introducing me to Walter Ciszek. I’ll be sure to look him up. And let me know the name of that book, if it’s not too much trouble.

Ken — absolutely. It’s called He Leadeth Me. A clunky title but perhaps the most convincing and instructive book on prayer that I’ve read. When he came back to the U.S. from Russia in the ’60s, Ciszek became a celebrity. He first wrote a book called With God in Russia, which was more of a blow-by-blow account of his life there. But he felt it hadn’t adequately captured the spiritual lessons he’d learned there, so he wrote He Leadeth Me to cover that. Glad you’re interested in the recommendation. Read Man’s Search for Meaning last summer. Also an amazing book!Stephen Martin recently posted … Quiz Time: How Thick Is Your Social Bubble?

Thanks Stephen, sounds like a great book. I’ll definitely add it to my always-too-long book wish-list. I’ve read Man’s Search for Meaning some 4-5 times and parts of it many, many more times than that. I love to mark up books so I can go back later to read those parts that meant the most to me without having to reread the whole thing again. Just don;t have time to reread every important book from cover to cover more than once or twice.

I often use the thought of my loved ones when I find myself in stressful situations in life or at work. The big chaos or disaster that I might experience (such as the printer not working when a meeting starts in two minutes) means so little in relation to anything happening to my family.
Thinking like that helps me get perspective on things and relax.

A simple excuse when entering the meeting two minutes late (as the others are about to sit down) will do and then life goes on.

Hi Betty, Such a great point you make here. Compared to something happening to my family, almost everything becomes irrelevant by comparison.

People are more reasonable than we sometimes give them credit for, aren’t they! Give them the reason we’re late and usually, things are fine — so long as we don ;t create the reputation of being late for things. Then it’s just irresponsibility.

Internet darkness actually teaches us something. We can’t deny the fact that internet is addictive (thanks to hyperlinks). We even don’t realize where hyperlinks are going to take us today. They might expose us to a new world altogether. That’s amazing. At the same time, addition (only) grows.Addiction creates dependencies. Dependency sometimes swaps our priorities in life.

Having said that, it’s sometime beneficial when such internet darkness happens. That makes us realize the beauty/power of offline (Real) life.

“Addiction creates dependencies.” This is such an important statement. When we’re addicted to a thing, we become dependent on that thing for our comfort or self-worth or meaning or identity or fulfillment.

Such an undermining way to seek fulfillment and meaning. So yes, I agree, those moments of internet darkness does help us (or at least provides us with the opportunity to) reconnect with real people in our lives.

What happened with your Internet connection reminded me of the first meditation retreat I went on. I had no connection with the outside world for 10 days. There were no phones. No Internet connection. No books or TV. There was no communication with the other meditators, not even eye contact! It was very hard at first and by the time I got back home I realised I hadn’t really missed all the communication tools. The only people I had missed like crazy were my family.

Wow, Hiten! Sounds intense! 10 days of isolation among people. Seems like the crowd of people would almost underscore the isolation because you can, but can’t speak, make eye contact, etc. Were you aloud to talk at certain times and places? Or was it really silent for 10 days?

Yes, it pretty much was total silence for the whole 10 days. The only people we were allowed to talk with, were the course managers about problems such as with food or lodgings but this was whispering and had to be kept to a minimum, so as not to disturb the other meditators! 🙂 I’m going on another one in June!

I’m impressed, Hiten! I think I would end up talking to myself just to keep from going crazy. 🙂 What would you say is the biggest benefit you walk away with from these mediation marathons? Just wondering if its the peace and centeredness meditators talk about achieving or the self-mastery/control that that kind of self-discipline would require and develop.

How did we ever survive before the internet? I get a kick out of reading those forwarded emails that remind us of the little things in life when we were kids. When I read those, I think, “Am I that old???”

While all the technology is definitely a marvelous thing, it can definitely create a bit too much space between us and the people closest to us. My husband and kids like to remind me of that.

I completely agree with all the comments above: The things I write about are frequently the things I need to hear most. We learn best by teaching others. Just today I went through my archives to find a post to help a reader. As I re-read it, I realized that the message was exactly what I needed to hear today.

Thanks so much Ken!! Hope you get virtually reconnected soon! Sounds like you took the opportunity to get connected where it’s the most important. 🙂Paige Burkes | simple mindfulness recently posted … Where Is Your Happy Place?

It’s crazy to think how authors had to type out their whole book without delete or copy/paste or spell check or lifting whole paragraphs of print and simply moving it somewhere else in the book. We certainly are technologically spoiled!

While I agree we certainly can be happy almost irrespective of what’s going on around us, I certainly don;t like being disconnected like this. It’s hard to reply to comments when it can only be done at work between things, on break, lunch, or before or after hours. So I do hope it gets resolved soon!

So glad there was something of use in the post. There is so much constantly nudging me back on course. Kids, spouse, friends, a sermon at church, a passage from scripture, a good book, conscience, an inspiring song or movie, examples of people I look up to. Life is all about nudging and being nudged in our collective effort at living better daily. And your blog serves that purpose so beautifully as well!

What a great line, Julie: “Oh yeah, I forgot to look up.” Thanks, Julie. That will be my new self-corrective. Sounds like a post title too: “Don’t Forget to Look Up!”

There’s a story of a man with a letter that was being sought by the secret police. He knew they were coming, so looked frantically for a place to hide it, but knew they would kick in the walls, tear up the floorboards, pull out the drawers and rip the bed to shreds. Finally, he put it in a stack of papers on the table in plain view.

Sometimes right in front of our faces is the hardest thing to see. So glad I looked up! 🙂

Wow Ken. This was really funny and so true. I spend a lot of time on my computer. It’s my library, my work station, my entertainment, and thanks so Skype and friends scattered all over the world, a significant portion of my social life.

I remember one night (thankfully not in the dead of winter), my power went out. It went out on the whole block. It was pitch dark, and although I lit candles, it was too dark to read. It was too early to go to bed. At first, I was pretty @#!*% off that I was sitting alone in the dark with nothing to do (too late to call someone and go out and I couldn’t really get ready without electricity). But after a while, I surrendered to the situation and meditated. The power came on after 2 hours so that evening turned into a wonderful, profound experience. I never turned on the computer, but went straight to bed. Sometimes, the Universe steps in to hit the reset button and if we listen, we benefit profoundly.

Oh! And congratulations on being included in Lori’s book! That’s awesome!!!

Hi Melody! What a great moment of clarity you had! Love that experience you had. We do have that opportunity to get all twisted up inside and make a bad situation worse, or shrug and do something else. What a great example of the latter!

Thanks for the congrats, Melody. It’s actually a book her publisher puts out (not Lori herself), but it’s still pretty darn cool!

Hi Ken,
I think practicing non-attachment is a good thing for us to do especially when it comes to technology. The weird thing is we KNOW it will come back on and life will go on. It’s kind of like a Chicken Little thing. We believe the sky is falling. Been there… Congrats on your story and all!Tess The Bold Life recently posted … A Fearless Guy and 13 Tips for Bold Living

So true, Tess. We human types do exaggerate things pretty easily, don’t we! The globe does keep spinning, the world does keep hurling through space in large rings around the sun and gravity doesn’t keep us planted where we are. And internet connections get fixed. And Tweets and Shares and all get Tweeted and Shared eventually once more.

Ken, my email server went down this afternoon and I was without emails and access to my blog for a few hours. And though initially, I mildly panicked (what, no emails!) since I was expecting some urgent replies, it was bliss!

Well, it’s been a week now, but I just talked with our IT guy (a kid who looks like he’s still in diapers!) and it looks like it may be a simple fix that was under my nose this whole time. We’ll see when I get home later this evening. Fingers crossed!

Those down times can be such god-sends, can’t they! We settle down, get some other things done and life keeps ticking forward!

Sometimes when I am at home my internet goes out and I cannot seem to do anything to fix it, at least for the most part. Lately, I have been using my time else where when I see there is no fixing my connection. I figure that maybe I am spending to much time online and that I need to be doing something else productive with my time. It is good to get away. We need time to relax and get a fresh sense of things.
I have been making time for other activities I enjoy. In the past, I have been known to isolate myself infront of a computer screen for weeks. I used to think that working myself to death was the way to go, but that is far from the truth. That time I spend else where is just what I need when I get in a slump.

So true, William! Regular breaks are so important. I;m a bit of a workaholic, so definitely know what you’re talking about when you used to powerhouse your way through the day. But breaks can help recenter us and keep our stamina up and productivity levels from tanking.

It’s so easy to let one thing become the sole focus of our lives until it’s too late to adjust such imbalances in our lives and things fall apart a bit.

Beautiful post Ken. I live in MN and we had an ice storm move through last week that left me without power for two days. For the first day I ran around soaking up free wi-fi and electricity wherever I could and was exhausted by the end of the day. The temp was going to dip into the teens that night so I sought refuge at a friend’s house and worked as late into the night as I could before plugging everything to recharge while I did.

The next morning I came home to still not having any power and was able to work a few hours until I was once again out of juice, but instead of running left and right to find refuel my batteries, I decided to take advantage of the moment and do some projects around the house that have been waiting for such a moment as this to get done.

The power came back on later that day and while I too, had spent many hours unplugged, I also found the experience to be a great reminder of all things that are truly important.

Thanks Christine! Sometimes a power outage can help re-power other parts of our often-neglected lives. So glad we both found that out early enough to adjust and improve and re-balance our lives.

The things that matter most so often get sacrificed at the altar of things that matter. But sometimes life sure has a way of reminding us to slow down, look around, take stock and re-prioritize, doesn’t it!

haha well said – we need to live our priorities as well! Today I was going to run around and do errands, but i felt a bit faint, and instead just went outside and sat in teh sun with my dog. Errands can wait. I’m my own priority 🙂
Noch NochNoch Noch recently posted … a no-guilt-no-pressure friend

Congratulations on your story! This is wonderful news. I love it when you said, “We need each other’s inspiration as we travel life’s highways, trying to figure it all out.” So very true, Ken.Marianne recently posted … In the End, Only Love Matters

Leave a response

A Walk Through HappinessGet my FREE eBook and monthly newsletter by subscribing below!

Email Address*

First Name

Your email will NEVER be shared with anyone

About Me

My name is Ken Wert, the founder of M2bH. My purpose here is to teach you how to live a richer life of greater purpose and meaning, of mind-blowing possibility and deeper, more soul-satisfying happiness than you ever dreamt was possible. Join us on this happy adventure as you learn how to unlock your hidden potential to enjoy the rewards of a life well lived. Read more ...